February 7, 1975: A Look At Your Library, an exhibition of more than 200 rare books and plates from the resources of The Brooklyn Museum’s Art Reference Library, will be on view at the Museum, Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue, from Wednesday, February 12, through March 30. The exhibition includes a unique selection of original water-color and pen-and-ink sketches by fashion designers from about 1910 through the 1940’s, among them costumes by Travis Banton for Ann Miller in Easter Parade (1912), for Rosalind Russell, Merle Oberon, Angela Lansbury and Barbara Stanwick. Sketches by designers Bonnie Cashin, Ladislas Czettel, Elizabeth Hawes, Edith Head and Walter Plunkett will also be shown.
The exhibition was selected from the 80,000 volumes in the Art Reference Library, which reflects and extends other great collections in The Brooklyn Museum. Early 19th-century travel and instructional books from the Apprentices’ Library (1823) and the Youth’s Free Library (1843), the nuclei of the present Library, are among the materials on view. In addition, the following major curatorial departments of the Museum are represented: the Department of Paintings and Sculpture by foreign and domestic plates and publications dealing with such twentieth-century artists as Arp, Calder, Degas and Vasarely; Costumes and Textiles by mid-l9th century designs; Primitive Art by references to the extensive collections from Africa, Oceania, the Precolumbian Americas and North American Indians; Decorative Arts by Americana -- pewter, glass and silver; Oriental Art by materials related to China, India, Japan, Korea and Tibet; Middle Eastern Art and Archaeology by a spectrum from Phoenicia to Byzantium[?]; and Prints and Drawings by illustrated books and by volumes of Alfred Stieglitz’s photographic quarterly, Camera Work (1903-17).
The exhibition was selected and installed by Margaret B. Zorach, Chief Librarian of The Brooklyn Museum. "A library,” says Mrs. Zorach, “is usually thought of as index cards and books stacked on tables. We hope that the color and startling variety of these exhibits, displayed so that they can be seen, will inspire art students, designers and serious scholars to investigate our resources. The exhibition delights me.“
The Art Reference Library is a non-circulating reference library. It is open to the public weekday afternoons during regular Museum hours or by special appointment. The Brooklyn Museum is open Wednesday from 10 am to 9 pm; Thursday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm; Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm; holidays, 1 to 5 pm; it is closed Monday and Tuesday.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1971 - 1988. 1975, 002-3.
